Naked Economics: Undressing the Dismal Science 3rd Edition

I didn’t expect a book on the broad spectrum of economics to be such an enjoyable read. This author has quite a gift for taking a topic with the potential to operate as a sedative and instead making it clever and entertaining. Wheelan concisely and clearly explains an overview of all the facets of economies and does an excellent job of showing the ramifications of decisions by consumers, business and lawmakers. Wheelan shows the reader how our economy (or any economy) necessarily gets put into place, and then examines proposed changes by various leaders and fleshes out what the impact would be of those decisions. He also thoroughly discusses the international markets and shows how essential the connections to them are to an optimized national and global economy. He demonstrates that economics is a web that stretches through all facets of government and societal life. Most of all, he substantiates that productivity is a hinge for society, and denotes the profound impact it has played in the past and continues to play. His purpose in this book is to educate, not to persuade, and that makes it all the better. He sprinkles in many, “wow! I can’t believe that,” stories throughout his chapters that illustrate his points and, more pointedly, keep the text entertaining.I learned so much from this book, and my thinking about economic issues has a more solid framework for having read it. I’ve learned to evaluate and appreciate the vast intricacies that the impact of proposed “fixes” that float around the news would have, and now appreciate the power of productivity in remedying many of life’s difficulties. I highly recommend this book. It gives you ideas to ruminate on well past the pages, and plus it is enjoyable and thus easy to read.

This is the first book that I read about Economics and I was surprised by all the things that it covered and how well explained were they, Charles Wheelan tried to create a book so even the person without the slightest knowledge of economics could read it and understand it, and as Burton Malkiel Said If I had wanted to write a book about Introduction to Economics, this is the book I'd have written.The first chapters cover the nature of markets and how is it possible to have so much organizations in a decentralized economy, it's about satisfying consumer goods, there's a great story about a Soviet Commander who once entered an American Pharmacy and amazed by all the quantity of the stuff asked the pharmacist, impressing, but how does the goverment manages to supply all of this things to all the pharmacies, like they did in the USSR, the answer was, they don't, there's not a law that indicates which things a pharmacy must have yet they all have almost the same kind of things, read the book to get the rest of the info on that and much more, believe it or not, interesting and enjoyable stories.He goes on to talk about How the financial system crashed by explaining how the financial system works and how the goverment did things it wasn't supposed to do, what the goverment can do and what it can't as opposed to the extremists who either want to get rid of the goverment completely or want it to control every aspect of our lives with detailed yet easy to understand explanaitions.Lastly and one of my favorite parts as I live in a developing country is the part about International Trade and Development Economics, he goes on to explain that globalization is not as bad as the anti globalization protesters want you to believe or as they believe, he also tackles the asian sweatshops problem and how closing them would cause much more damage to the workers because capitalism is about choices and if they had a better working opportunity they as rational individuals would take it, but they don't because there are no better oportunities, obviously it has much more background than that, I just hope everyone read the book so we could unite to support the policies that help us all and stop the unrational prejudicing about things that benefit us all like Globalization and Free Trade.

I was dreading my college economics class, but I am happy to say that I am nearly done with it and this book made it MUCH easier. While I wouldn't agree with a critic who claimed this book made "the study of economics fascinating", it was certainly not the normal dry, mind-numbing compilation of confusing explanations and terms. Presented almost as if a compilation of short stories, the book is thoughtful and uses real-world samples that allow the reader to really understand the concepts without getting bogged down in terms and definitions. Some parts were amusing, other parts had me nodding in empathy and other parts had me saying "Ah!" as things finally began to click.A word of caution: As this is not a dictionary of economic terms, nor and encyclopedia of facts and events, it sways to certain thoughts or opinions. That said, it is worth reading.

I love this book. I teach college economics and used the previous version of this book in my classes. Students really loved it (and said so on their anonymous end-of-semester course evaluations). It has great real-world examples, and it explains economics concepts in ways anyone can understand. The new version is terrific, with lots of updated examples on recent events, while keeping the same highly readable style. I love the range of topics this book covers, including the economics of special interests, things government does right, things it does wrong, the economics of environmental issues and property rights, plus all the new material on the recent economic crisis.This book is great for college students who want a more intuitive and readable explanation of the concepts in their textbook, but it is also really great for anyone who wants to better understand how the economy works.Highly recommended!